BIKE: Percentage of Austin Bike Commuters

[David Foster]

I have run across a great web page which allows you to query U.S. census 
data to create tables of stats for how people get to work in U.S. cities: 
http://www.bikesatwork.com/carfree/carfree-census-database.html. This is 
not to be confused with bikestowork.com which Michael Bluejay lists on his 
web page.

The bikeatwork web page allows you to create tables which rank cities of 
different size or in different states by % of bike commuters, walk 
commuters, transit users, non-car users, and households without a car. The 
tables list stats for both the 1990 and 2000 census so you can get some 
idea of how things have changed.

Sadly but perhaps not surprisingly, Austin does not rank so well. Among 
cities of 250,00 and more we rank 17th in % of bike-to-work commuters at 
0.96%. This is only slightly higher than the
0.76%  for 1990. Among Texas cities, Austin ranks 4th, behind College 
Station, Galveston and Bryan. In College Station and Bryan, the high % of 
college students skews the number for the good, no doubt.

The census numbers for Austin corresponds closely to the numbers CAMPO 
produces every three years in its travel survey. The most recent one was 
done earlier this year and can be found on the CAMPO web page 
www.campotexas.org; the link is on the home page under the title '2004 
CAMPO Transportation Issues Survey Executive Summary.' According to this 
survey, the % of bike commuters in 2004 remains about where it was 10 years 
ago, at 1%. This is distressing since we created a bike program and passed 
a two-part bike plan in 1996 and 1997, have approved bond money for bike 
projects, etc.  Perhaps the 'good' news is that the number of bike 
commuters in absolute terms must have risen since we have gained so much 
population since 1990, so our numbers must be keeping pace, roughly, with 
this growth.

My guess is that there are great disparities depending on where you live. 
Inside the central city, bounded roughly by Ben White on the south, MOPAC 
on the west, and 183 on the north and east, my guess is the % of bike 
commuters is significantly higher than 1%, but I have no way at present to 
measure or prove this (I do not have the time to dig into census tract data 
that might allow me to answer this question). But we know that most of the 
growth Austin experienced since 1994 has been in the form of auto-oriented 
sprawl subdivisions outside the central city, which has off-set any gains 
made inside the central city, where (at least my intuition tells me) the 
numbers have been climbing. And once we finally get around to completing 
the Pfluger Bridge and the Lance Armstrong Bikeway, to name just two 
obvious improvements, the numbers should climb more.

There are some encouraging indicators in CAMPO' s survey. Although over 90% 
of commuters drive alone, about 26% of them would be willing to bike 'if 
conditions are right for them.'  Of this 26%, 37.5%  said they would be 
either willing or very willing to consider biking if they had 'safer bike 
paths and lanes', and another 33.7% said they would be willing to do if 
they had 'safer conditions.'  About 28% of commuters of all types work 
within 5 miles or less of where they live, an easily bikeable distance. So 
the potential for increasing the mode share in of biking in Austin is 
large, as we have saying for many years now.

Still, I found it sobering to read how little progress we seem to have made 
over the last 10-15 years. I also ran across an article from the Austin 
Chronicle where Rick Waring, the city's Bike Coordinator in the mid 1990s, 
said his goal was to increase bike commuting to 8% of work trips by 2015. 
We have a lot of work to do. And does any one on this list recall if CAMPO 
(known earlier as ATS or Austin Transportation Study) had a specific 
numerical goal for bike commuting? I think they did but cannot find  it.

My hope is that the Envision Central Texas vision takes hold of policy 
makers and we do urban infill and mixed-use, transit-oriented development 
where we can. Check out the 'resources' link on the 
www.envisionsentraltexas.org web page for information about emerging plans 
or proposal for transit oriented development.